3taps countersues Craigslist, accuses ad site of antitrust violations

But Craigslist continues to stay mum about its business, legal strategy.

3taps has locked horns in a legal battle with Craigslist for nearly two months, and on Monday the company launched a countersuit against its rival. 3taps accuses Craigslist of antitrust violations and unfair competition.

In response to growing grumbling over Craigslist’s shocking refusal to change its user interface or add features, other sites have sprung up to use Craigslist data as a way to create new business—most notably perhaps was PadMapper (which helps potential tenants find apartments as plotted on Google Maps). In July, Craigslist filed lawsuits against three companies that had previously been using its data by scraping it directly and accused them of copyright violation.

3taps, meanwhile, openly defied that plan. Instead, the company scrapes the Google cache of Craigslist’s classified listings, so Craigslist responded by telling search engines to stop indexing ads. For now, 3taps appears to have a strong legal case, having noted previously that no one can hold a copyright on a public fact—such as the price or number of bedrooms of a given apartment.

"While we respect what Craigslist has accomplished in the past in attaining dominance over online classified advertising, we object to them using that market power illegally to stifle innovation and hurt consumers,” Greg Kidd, founder and CEO of 3taps, wrote in a statement. “As Craigslist spends heavily to bully and intimidate companies that challenge them, consumers are deprived of better ways to find and execute real-time exchange transactions."

Kidd went on to accuse Craigslist of using its “monopoly position to achieve huge annual profits without sinking any meaningful costs into research and development or innovation.”

Craigslist’s CEO and the company spokesperson both failed to respond to Ars’ requests for comment made via phone, Twitter, and e-mail.

36 Reader Comments

Good. I am personally sick of such limited and bland service Craigslist gives. Free? yes but by no means fair of posting limitation and the lack of progression to their service. Why? Stupid Ebay and their mafia PayPal. I am forced to use it all because of it's mass presence and visitor count for selling products. I have the tendency to sell things over the world but I am scared to hell with giving my informational soul to stupid PayPal. The more dollars you rake in the more they'll lock you out with an amount bait to suck more information. /rantoffAbout craigslist, it is the most limited site I have ever seen among all comparable competitors. I have been using backpage and wow, world's difference. Too bad nobody uses backpage, no sell. It's about time.

I also don't understand how CL is being anti-competitive. There are numerous sites that do what CL does.

Nobody uses them. How is that CL's problem?

Even if you really are a monopoly, so long as you won it fair and square US law allows you to continue to operate monopolistically unless you try to leverage that monopoly into another market. For example, the US was fine with Microsoft having 487% of the desktop OS market until they tried to leverage that into dominance over the web browser market.

3Taps CEO seems to be a bit over the top. "Monopoly position"? "spends heavily to bully and intimidate companies that challenge them"? "using... market power illegally to stifle innovation and hurt consumers"?

For reals Kidd?

Though I am surprised Craigslist doesn't add more tools to make their site more user-friendly. [shrug]

3Taps CEO seems to be a bit over the top. "Monopoly position"? "spends heavily to bully and intimidate companies that challenge them"? "using... market power illegally to stifle innovation and hurt consumers"?

For reals Kidd?

Though I am surprised Craigslist doesn't add more tools to make their site more user-friendly. [shrug]

The beauty of Craigslist is it's simple enough for pretty much anyone to use. Craigslist is by far the only site that i've seen that is designed so simple that even the most tech illiterate people are able to use it.

This may be the reason they keep it the same. They're not trying to alienate people when the current design already works.

Even though I think they should license their data through an API they are under no obligation to do so and shouldn't be required to do so.

Actually, Craigslist's decision to charge for ads in cities that were previously free could reasonably be considered anti-competitive: offer a lower price (well below market standard) to build your market share, then raise the price after you've achieved dominance.

I'm pretty sure that wasn't their intention, but it could easily be presented that way.

I understand that parties can countersue, but being sued doesn't magically give you retroactive rights to things to which you were never entitled in the first place.

Plaintiff: ...and therefore the Defendant slandered me and my pet goldfish. We seek damages.Defendant: During the time of this alleged slander, the Plaintiff never once gave me a ride to the airport. We are filing a countersuit.

Craigslist is missing a huge opportunity here. They could leverage their listings to become a de facto MLS-type service for apartment rentals. But they seem content to leave their interface in HTML 2.0 mode, and turn down the vast buckets of money they could make with an in-house, Zillow-like map mashup, or through an API.

Sadly, it is the consumer that suffers because of their intransigence.

M$ has an anti-trust on Windows OS - XBox products - Internet Explorer (although one could argue browsers in general)

Samsung has an anti-trust on Galaxy Tab products

Motorola has an anti-trust on the term RAZR

Sony has an anti-trust on the Playstation brand

BECAUSE - here's the rub - the Users that goto Craigslist to post anything - have the right and the choice to post there or elsewhere and post the same information or not.

Just as 3Taps has the choice to not base their entire business model on another company. This practice has become very prominent around FaceBook and commonplace. Just because "everybody's doing it" does not mean it is back by anything legal where another company can be held liable for change products or practices (because another business is being hurt - boo fucking hoo). Or some of those small companies that only sell accessories for the iPhone OR have products only in the Apple App Store - if Apple changes directions - not their problem that a small company that banked on the eco-system 100% has issues. Adapt or find something else to do. Make an Android App. 3Tps could scrape Monster or Career Builder data just as easily (unless they've modified their caching since this occurred).

What happens next - if Craigslist goes bankrupt or shuts down its business - 3Taps has no one to blame but themselves.

It's not manipulation - it's Craigslist making choices about their own business. To protect their business. They have no share-holders to answer to - so Newmark can pretty much do what ever he feels like with his company and his products and services (within the law). Which there is no anti-trust here.

And on the Intternet - a global community - things like monopoly and anti-trust become harder and harder to create much less enforce or prove. Google has the majority of search queries online - are they a monopoly - no. M$ has the most Users using it's browser to "surf" the web - are they a monopoly - no.

3Taps needs to pull their collective heads out of their collective asses and move the frak on.

Also - it would be a good time for Congress or who ever is incharge of litigation changes to rewrite the books on frivolous lawsuits. Oh no - i sneezed within 6 feet of you - you're suing me for potential cronic ailments - whatever.

It's just an electronic version of a bulletin board at a supermarket or town hall. It doesn't need to be any more than that. If some upstart wanna be thinks he can crowdsource or venture capitalize a competitor, let him convince sellers and buyers to frequent his website. Complaining that he can no longer scrape off of a Google cache is like some vagrant bitching that the restaurant put a padlock on the dumpster.

I hate when I go to some website and any innocent mousing over causes a flash, HTML5, or silverlight explosion all over my screen. Sometimes flat ASCII gives you all the information you want. It's good enough for *books*!

When the main reasons people use your service are "everyone uses this service so they won't see my ad anywhere else" and "everyone uses this service so I can't find ads anywhere else", it stops being a case of you-earned-it-fair-and-square about five years in. Some of these other services are undeniably BETTER, but the way classified ads work, you really have no choice but to use the service with the existing userbase.

Craigslist's one advantage, complete control of the userbase, outweighs every other factor. And it's something no other company can create no matter how clever they are or how much money they spend. How can you possibly offer "we also have users!" to draw users away? Back when craigslist climbed to the top, the userbase was split among dozens and dozens of newspapers. Now that they're all gathered into one place, how can that be undone?

Some of these startups actually had a pretty clever idea: absolute facts, like "there is a two-bedroom apartment for rent at this location" aren't copyrightable, so you could use those facts on your service to start gathering some users, and eventually those users might draw other users. I'm disappointed that didn't seem to work out.

I hope that somehow, without screwing over rights and laws, Craigslist gets knocked off its throne.

Ads need two things: text and images. There is nothing wrong with CL in that respect. My only problem with CL is their lack of efficient spam control. So yeah, 3taps needs to piss off and crawl back into their hole.

Oh and yeah, I came across websites that "add value" to CL by harvesting CL info and slapping Flash'y interface over it and putting ads all over. They don't add anything at all that isn't already present in the CL ads. Useless parasites.

"For now, 3taps appears to have a strong legal case, having noted previously that no one can hold a copyright on a public fact—such as the price or number of bedrooms of a given apartment."

There's a big difference between "you don't own those facts" and "that means I have the right to plunder your database for profit."

... the right to plunder your database for profit that you willingly allowed to be freely indexed by search engines to increase visibility.

And CL has since revoked that permission to be freely indexed, so now 3taps is bent out of shape and thinks it's unfair they can't continue to make money off someone else's data. Building your entire business model on someone else's data is a precarious position.

CL took their ball and went home. Tough. Don't like it? Buy your own ball.

And CL has since revoked that permission to be freely indexed, so now 3taps is bent out of shape and thinks it's unfair they can't continue to make money off someone else's data. Building your entire business model on someone else's data is a precarious position.

CL shot itself in the foot because its profit-jealousy tears were too delicious. And by the way, you just described the entire business model of Facebook, Google, and CL as a precarious position. If it's profitable, why not? As far as I'm concerned, 3taps was doing CL a great service by helping visitors find the information they were looking for. Fighting against your business model of making things readily available to buyers and sellers sounds counter-productive.

CL shot itself in the foot because its profit-jealousy tears were too delicious. And by the way, you just described the entire business model of Facebook, Google, and CL as a precarious position. If it's profitable, why not? As far as I'm concerned, 3taps was doing CL a great service by helping visitors find the information they were looking for. Fighting against your business model of making things readily available to buyers and sellers sounds counter-productive.

The difference being that people willingly give up their data to Facebook and Google. (Yes, I know Facebook has been in trouble over its use of user data, but its terms of service essentially says they can do whatever they want with it.) This is an issue between craigslist, whom users willingly give data to, and 3taps, whom neither craigslist nor users willingly give data to.

It's just an electronic version of a bulletin board at a supermarket or town hall. It doesn't need to be any more than that. If some upstart wanna be thinks he can crowdsource or venture capitalize a competitor, let him convince sellers and buyers to frequent his website. Complaining that he can no longer scrape off of a Google cache is like some vagrant bitching that the restaurant put a padlock on the dumpster.

I hate when I go to some website and any innocent mousing over causes a flash, HTML5, or silverlight explosion all over my screen. Sometimes flat ASCII gives you all the information you want. It's good enough for *books*!

++

CL is smart, b/c they keep it so simple folks on dial-up (yes, I know, oh the tragedy but you'd be surprised) can still surf it quickly and effectively.

My biggest gripe with them is that commercial sellers seem able to game the system to spam post and flag ads while normal joes either get their ad flagged very fast or get it ghosted for some unknown reason. I posted an ad for free stuff ... free... stuff ... Was a completely vanilla ad just listing stuff that was free sitting in front of my house. Got flagged in 30 minutes. I was shocked. Likewise, I post an ad to sell stuff. Go through the motions of providing all the info. Ad gets ghosted. Why? Then you get stuck in their about-as-useful-as-a-tick-on-a-dog's-ass "help desk" message board which if just full of abusive folks getting their rocks off on putting folks down.

It's not a perfect model. But, it does provide a service. Problem is, when it's free, every tool and troll in the world comes out and abuses it.

I guess my one other gripe is I wish they'd add more selling sections. EG: break out motorcycles into motorcycles, scooters, parts, gear, etc. This would help eliminate wading through a lot of cruft when searching for something. Likewise, don't let anyone post an ad w/o giving a price, or giving a deceptive price. I'm tired of seeing ...

AWESOME BIKE $20k - $1

... which shows up when you search for bikes for <$5000. Hate that shit.

But, it's free, and it is what it is. I like their stripped-down model. Pages load fast. I like how they updated the photo buckets now, so you see thumbnails then exploded views on mouse-over. Everyone can try to make a competing model, but CL already has it in the bag. They'd have to provide some new killer feature that CL doesn't have ... like maybe filtering ... being able to "flag" a user so you never see their spam ads again. Would love that on some of these d-bag spammers on there.

craigslist is great. Pages load in seconds no matter what kind of mobile or other connection I might have, and they provide the information I need. Search is completely functional, as simple or as sophisticated as I need it to be. Its archiving system puts eBay and other supposedly fancier sites to shame. These competing companies refuse to admit there might be a reason for CL's success, so they try other routes besides innovation.

"... that no one can hold a copyright on a public fact—such as the price or number of bedrooms of a given apartment."

Except that it is not a public fact - it is a private fact. It was built through someone's private money so it is not really a public fact; as in a public's right-to-know. Now the public may happen to know because it is, perhaps, a difficult to hide thing or not important enough to keep in wraps. OR, more relevant to the story, was deliberately mentioned in a public forum (aka Craigslist). But that should not mean it is out there for everyone to use and reuse.

[ my reasoning ]The publisher of the (private) information had made a conscious decision about disclosing it on 'one' forum. Just because others can read it does not mean they too can start publishing it. The choice to make it available on a certain forum lies with the owner of the info - and that is the original publisher, not even Craigslist. When 3tap is siphoning off the information off of Craigslist, they are actually trampling on the rights of the original publisher who gave Craigslist the permission to display the ad but did not give these 3rd party sites to publish them.

As an aside, Craigslist should be under no obligation to share data, improve UI or enhance its services.

But, it's free, and it is what it is. I like their stripped-down model. Pages load fast. I like how they updated the photo buckets now, so you see thumbnails then exploded views on mouse-over. Everyone can try to make a competing model, but CL already has it in the bag. They'd have to provide some new killer feature that CL doesn't have ... like maybe filtering ... being able to "flag" a user so you never see their spam ads again. Would love that on some of these d-bag spammers on there.

Great suggestions. Nice examples of how Craigslist refuses to innovate or improve their services, instead maintaining their favorable status quo, and crushing competition, via the legal system.

But, it's free, and it is what it is. I like their stripped-down model. Pages load fast. I like how they updated the photo buckets now, so you see thumbnails then exploded views on mouse-over. Everyone can try to make a competing model, but CL already has it in the bag. They'd have to provide some new killer feature that CL doesn't have ... like maybe filtering ... being able to "flag" a user so you never see their spam ads again. Would love that on some of these d-bag spammers on there.

Great suggestions. Nice examples of how Craigslist refuses to innovate or improve their services, instead maintaining their favorable status quo, and crushing competition, via the legal system.

3taps is not a competitor of Craigslist. A competitor would have its own sellers and its own ads, and there is little in Craigslist's behavior that signals they've been unfair to actual competitors.

3taps is an unauthorized mash-up using data that isn't theirs.

To reiterate what I said above, there is no legal basis to break up a monopoly just because competitors (or even consumers) don't like it. The whole point of an intellectual property regime is to establish monopolies. If I think Disney is remiss by not having a Donald Duck FPS game, who am I to try to force them to make one? If I think that Rolex is failing to innovate in the highly-water-resistant digital watch space, who am I to try to force them to make one? Same goes to Craigslist. If enough people really find the service lacking, they'll find alternatives.

Bottom line: If you don't like Craigslist, use a competitor. Or start your own.

I hate using Craigslist when looking for apartments, so anyone that wants to challenge them on this front has my support. Hopefully someone can break up the hold they have on that space, as they really provide an awful interface for looking for places to live.

FrankM wrote:

Bottom line: If you don't like Craigslist, use a competitor. Or start your own.

If you looking for a place to live, you don't really have a choice but to use whatever tools exist to find something. You are basically a captive market. And "start your own" isn't really a useful comment to make. It's like saying "If you don't like Facebook, start your own social network." It's just not going to end well.

And "start your own" isn't really a useful comment to make. It's like saying "If you don't like Facebook, start your own social network." It's just not going to end well.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him... The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself... All progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1903)

Craig's List doesn't have a prayer on this one, unless they can win by bankrupting people with lawyers' fees. This has already been to the Supreme Court over phone books, Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991), and there isn't a sliver of light between the two sets of issues.